Grass snake from Uganda

Accounts and photos of non-captive reptiles in their natural habitat outside of South Africa. Try to record with your account details such as time of day/night, temperature, weather conditions, lunar cycle, sex, rough age of reptile, and so on.

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Grass snake from Uganda

Postby Sico » Wed Mar 24, 2010 6:21 pm

Today whilst clearing bush for a Seismic survey in Ugandas rift valley close to Lake Albert, our Mulcher drove over this snake.
I assume it is some kind of Skaapsteker... it was 91cm long, and was overall bronze in colour, with a black line running down it's length, about 2/3 of the way towards the bottom of the belly. Can any one ID?
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I also came across this skink, which was the second that i saw, the first having run into some thick bush before i could catch it. The first one was more silver in colour, but otherwise identical. Any ID?
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Mark
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Re: Grass snake from Uganda

Postby Warren Klein » Wed Mar 24, 2010 6:35 pm

Defiantly a Psammophis sp. interesting line on the ventrals, dont think Ive seen that before.
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Re: Grass snake from Uganda

Postby Westley Price » Thu Mar 25, 2010 7:42 am

It looks like P. subtaeniatus, although I'm not sure if their distribution extends that far north.

The skink does not look likeTrachylepis, but something shouts Lygosoma, although I'm just guessing.

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Re: Grass snake from Uganda

Postby Westley Price » Thu Mar 25, 2010 8:43 am

Did a bit of scratching around and it looks like Lygosoma afrum (Mochlus afer).

But I'm still pretty unsure.

Rather wait for some of the pros to ID it.
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Re: Grass snake from Uganda

Postby s'mee » Thu Mar 25, 2010 9:45 pm

The snake falls into the Psammophis mossambicus/siblans/sudanensis(subtaeniatus) complex. This is always a tricky one to resolve, but I would go with P mossambicus.

The lizard is Lygosoma afrum.
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Re: Grass snake from Uganda

Postby armata » Thu Mar 25, 2010 11:36 pm

The snake is Psammophis tritaeniatus. Found a few a few years back in Uganda myself.
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